New Delhi, Jun 13: The Supreme Court agreed Thursday to hear tomorrow a plea of medical aspirants, who claimed that the answer key of five questions asked in NEET(UG)-2019 exam was wrong and the paper needs to be quashed.

A vacation bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and Ajay Rastogi agreed to hear the plea filed by four students who appeared for the exam.

The petition filed by four Hyderabad-based students -- Kayathi Mohan Reddy and three others through advocate Mahfooz Nazki, said that National Testing Agency (NTA) which conducted the exam issued wrong answer keys and therefore jeopardised the career prospects of the aspirants who sat for the exam.

The exam was conducted on May 5 and the official answer key was issued on May 29 to the questions asked in the examination.

"Upon perusal of the key, the petitioners were shocked to note that answers to a number of questions were demonstrably wrong," the plea said.

The students said they gave the representation about the errors in the official answer key on May 30 and subsequently on June 5, a revised answer key was published.

"Pertinently, no option was given to the candidates to file any objections. To the shock and chagrin of the petitioners, not only did the key continue to have errors, some answers that had been correctly notified earlier, stood changed to a wrong answer," the petition said.

"...it is thus ex-facie evident that the whole exercise of examination conducted by the respondent no. 1 (NTA) is grossly illegal, arbitrary and impinges upon the constitutional and fundamental rights of the Petitioners herein and is vitiated in terms of the law laid down by this Court", it said.

The plea said, "The respondents have not only failed to rectify the defects/errors in the question papers but have also refused to accept any representations sought to be made by the petitioners in respect of the revised key. The whole process is, therefore vitiated and is liable to be set aside".

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Sivasagar/Guwahati (PTI): Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday slammed the Congress for “not verifying” the documents based on which it brought allegations against him and his family.

Congress leader Pawan Khera had on Sunday alleged that Sarma’s wife, Riniki Bhuyan Sarma, has multiple passports and foreign property, which were not declared in the chief minister’s election affidavit.

Sarma also hit out at Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, claiming that he was “speaking like a madman” due to old age, after the latter put the onus on central agencies to probe the charges.

The CM asserted that Khera had “run away” to Hyderabad, but the Assam Police will “hunt him down even from ‘pataal’ (netherworld)”.

“‘Assam Police ko nahi jante hain.. Pataal se bhi ukhar ke le ayega’ (They don’t know the Assam Police... they will hunt him down even from the netherworld),” asserted Sarma.

An Assam Police team had earlier in the day visited the Delhi residence of Khera for questioning him in connection with the case.

“If they didn’t know the truth, why did they put it out in public? They should have asked the foreign minister first,” Sarma told reporters on the sidelines of an election campaign, when asked for his reaction to Kharge’s assertion that the Union government should probe the allegations now.

Kharge, at a presser in Guwahati on Tuesday, said all agencies are under the central government, which should probe the charges.

"They have already filed an FIR against Khera. Let them probe the matter. We will face the case as it progresses. We have sought probes by the ED or CBI into the allegations," he said.

Sarma added: “Kharge is ageing and is speaking like a ‘pagal’ (madman). You insult the people first and then say will ask the foreign minister (for verification)? Is he your ‘damad’ (son-in-law),” the chief minister said.

“I think Rahul Gandhi had given these documents to Khera, and if that is so, the case will then include Gandhi,” he added.